According to wikipedia.com, "Advertising is a form of communication whose purpose is to inform potential customers about products and services and how to obtain and use them. ..." And while this is a good definition there's a shorter one every online business person should have etched into their minds ...
"Advertising is salesmanship. ... The only purpose of advertising is to make sales."
Claude Hopkins, Scientific Advertising
When you write an ad, you're not writing to win an award or to create a work of art. Your ad won't be judged on how good your grammar is or how clever and amusing it is.
Your ad has 1 purpose ... to sell. And it's only good if it does.
When you try to sell a product, a service, a membership or you're trying to get people to join your mailing list, you're advertising.
Over the years there has been a lot of advertising copy written and tested. Here's a list of:
10 Basic Techniques Proven To Make Effective Ad Copy
- Focus on your reader - not yourself. Those reading your ad want to know "What's in it for me?" A good ad tells your readers why they should try your product, service, etc.
- Emphasize benefits, not features. The difference between a benefit and a feature is - a feature describes a quality of what you're selling while a benefit tells what a feature means to them. In other words, don't say things like, "XXX autoresponder service has a 96% delivery rate" say something like "Get more of your email delivered to improve your sales. XXX leads the industry in delivering your messages and the more email delivered means more sales for you."
- Push your readers "Emotional Hot Buttons. "Remember, people don't like to be sold but they do like to buy and they buy things based on their emotions. To know their "Emotional Hot Buttons" you must know your readers and even more importantly, you must know what they really want even if they don't. In other words, if your selling a service you know your ad readers are looking for don't just promote the standard benefits. Drive the sale by emphasizing how this service is less expensive or more dependable or easier to use, etc. because saving money, being reliable or easy to use are the real reasons they'll chose 1 service over another.
- Incorporate proof and believability in your ad. You must make sure your readers will believe your ad because if they don't they won't buy. Things that make an ad believable are:
Honest and truthful statements
Testimonials of satisfied customers
Facts and research findings that support your claims
A picture of yourself
Awards and good third-party reviews
A refund policy
Celebrity endorsements - Have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Your USP is what separates you from the rest of those selling the same thing. While price, quality, service and bonuses are 4 of the most stressed USP's there are others. In fact, your USP could be something all your competitors have but don't mention. For instance, say you're advertising aWeber and your competition is promoting the standard benefits of unlimited campaigns, reliability, templates, ease of creating forms, training videos and customer support so you point out that aWeber allows you to mail to multiple lists or to track your click-thru rate with with the click of a button. The fact that aWeber provides these things no matter who sells the service isn't important. The fact that they didn't point it out and you did is.
- Focus on your headline because your headline is…an ad for your ad. It's your headline that convinces people to read your advertising or not.
- The more you tell, the more you sell. While most newcomers to marketing think long sales copy is boring and won't sell, the fact is long sales copy outsells short ads. However, the long sales copy must not be long and boring or long and untargeted. Long sales copy must be relevant and targeted. A long ad written for a targeted market of experts won't be read by novices and vice versa.
- Write To Be Scanned. This goes with the last tip because most will scan your ad before reading to see if it's of interest. If you've got some white space, nice margins, short sentences, short paragraphs, sub-headings, a benefit list and emphasized words or phrases with bold, italics or color you make your ad more inviting to read plus it will be easier to catch the interest of your targeted market. And while some may decide not to read the ad and leave, others will go back to read the ad and others may order after they've only scanned the ad.
- Follow the structure of AIDA. AIDA stands for:
Attention - Grab their attention with your headline
Interest - Keep their interest with compelling sales copy
Desire - Capitalize on your customers' desire
Action - Tell your customer what to do with your call to action - Use takeaway selling to increase the urgency. People tend to buy faster when they know the offer is limited. Limiting the quantity, imposing a deadline for orders and putting a limit on parts of the offer like the bonuses, guarantee or price tell people they need to act now rather than later.
When you use takeaway selling there are 2 important things you should do:
1. Tell them why the offer is being restricted.
2. Enforce the restriction.
Remember, good advertising is written to do 1 thing - sell. It isn't always grammatically correct, it talks about benefits, not features and sells on emotion. It paints a compelling picture and irresistible offer that forces your prospect to act and act now! If it doesn't, then you drop that ad like a hot potato and go with one that does.
To Your Success,
Susan
P.S. Please feel free to leave a comment about this tip.
Tags: advertising, how to write good advertising, writing good advertising, writing good ad copy, effective ad copy
|